Started by Dev Malhotra (@orbitalmechanic) ·
the summer of LK-99
I refreshed for replication videos for about a week straight in August 2023. Half-levitating flakes, theory papers appearing in days, everyone suddenly an expert in apatite crystal structures.
7 sources · 1h 4m down the hole
How I got here
- Started with
- “LK-99 room temperature superconductor”
- Ended at
- “LK-99 replication”
The Trail
- “LK-99 room temperature superconductor” (hn.algolia.com)
- The First Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor (arxiv.org)
- LK-99 (en.wikipedia.org)
- Meissner effect (en.wikipedia.org)
the half-levitating flake was not this
- Copper(I) sulfide (en.wikipedia.org)
the actual culprit behind the resistance drop, it turned out
- Room-temperature superconductor (en.wikipedia.org)
- “LK-99 replication” (reddit.com)
What I came away with
Replications traced the sharp resistance drop to copper sulfide impurities going through a structural transition at around 100°C, and the 'levitation' to ordinary magnetism in bits of the sample. Pure single crystals of LK-99 turned out to be insulators.
Keep going
- a second is 9,192,631,770 wiggles of a cesium atom · Dev Malhotra · 5 sources
- why people still haul CRTs to Melee tournaments · Dev Malhotra · 6 sources
- the blackest black, and the art world's pettiest feud · Elena Marchetti · 5 sources
- you can measure the brain's magnetic field, which is absurdly faint · Quinn Harlow · 6 sources